‘You probably did say something stupid. You just need to get used to each other.’
‘I really didn’t. I was so careful. I hardly said anything except “Would you like to go out for a drive?” or “Would you like a cup of tea?”.’
‘Well, maybe he’s like that with everyone at the start, until he knows whether you’re going to stick around. I bet they get through loads of helpers.’
‘He didn’t even want me in the same room as him. I don’t think I can stick it, Katrina. I really don’t. Honest – if you’d been there you would understand.’
Treena said nothing then, just looked at me for a while. She got up and glanced out of the door, as if checking whether there was anybody on the landing.
‘I’m thinking of going back to college,’ she said, finally.
It took my brain a few seconds to register this change of tack.
‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘But –’
‘I’m going to take a loan to pay for the fees. But I can get some special grant too, because of having Thomas, and the university is offering me reduced rates because they … ’ She shrugged, a little embarrassed. ‘They say they think I could excel. Someone’s dropped out of the business studies course, so they can take me for the beginning of the next term.’
‘What about Thomas?’
‘There’s a nursery on campus. We can stay there in a subsidized flat in halls in the week, and come back here most weekends.’
‘Oh.’
I could feel her watching me. I didn’t know what to do with my face.
‘I’m really desperate to use my brain again. Doing the flowers is doing my head in. I want to learn. I want to improve myself. And I’m sick of my hands always being freezing cold from the water.’
We both stared at her hands, which were pink tinged, even in the tropical warmth of our house.
‘But –’
‘Yup. I won’t be working, Lou. I won’t be able to give Mum anything. I might … I might even need a bit of help from them.’ This time she looked quite uncomfortable. Her expression, when she glanced up at me, was almost apologetic.
Downstairs Mum was laughing at something on the television. We could hear her exclaiming to Granddad. She often explained the plot of the show to him, even though we told her all the time she didn’t need to. I couldn’t speak. The significance of my sister’s words sank in slowly but inexorably. I felt like a Mafia victim must do, watching the concrete setting slowly around their ankles.
‘I really need to do this, Lou. I want more for Thomas, more for both of us. The only way I’ll get anywhere is by going back to college. I haven’t got a Patrick. I’m not sure I’ll ever have a Patrick, given that nobody’s been remotely interested since I had Thomas. I need to do the best I can by myself.’
When I didn’t say anything, she added, ‘For me and Thomas.’
I nodded.
‘Lou? Please?’
I had never seen my sister look like that before. It made me feel really uncomfortable. I lifted my head, and raised a smile. My voice, when it emerged, didn’t even sound like my own.
‘Well, like you say. It’s just a matter of getting used to him. It’s bound to be difficult in the first few days, isn’t it?’
4
Two weeks passed and with them emerged a routine of sorts. Every morning I would arrive at Granta House at eight, call out that I was there and then, after Nathan had finished helping Will dress, listen carefully while he told me what I needed to know about Will’s meds – or, more importantly, his mood.
After Nathan had left I would programme the radio or television for Will, dispense his pills, sometimes crushing them with the little marble pestle and mortar. Usually, after ten minutes or so he would make it clear that he was weary of my presence. At this point I would eke out the little annexe’s domestic tasks, washing tea towels that weren’t dirty, or using random vacuum attachments to clean tiny bits of skirting or window sill, religiously popping my head round the door every fifteen minutes as Mrs Traynor had instructed. When I did, he would be sitting in his chair looking out into the bleak garden.
Later I might take him a drink of water, or one of the calorie-filled drinks that were supposed to keep his weight up and looked like pastel-coloured wallpaper paste, or give him his food. He could move his hands a little, but not his arm, so he had to be fed forkful by forkful. This was the worst part of the day; it seemed wrong, somehow, spoon-feeding a grown man, and my embarrassment made me clumsy and awkward. Will hated it so much he wouldn’t even meet my eye while I was doing it.
And then shortly before one, Nathan would arrive and I would grab my coat and disappear to walk the streets, sometimes eating my lunch in the bus shelter outside the castle. It was cold and I probably looked pathetic perched there eating my sandwiches, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t spend a whole day in that house.
In the afternoon I would put a film on – Will had a membership of a DVD club and new films arrived by post every day – but he never invited me to watch with him, so I’d usually go and sit in the kitchen or in the spare room. I started bringing in a book or magazine, but I felt oddly guilty not actually working, and I could never quite concentrate on the words. Occasionally, at the end of the day, Mrs Traynor would pop in – although she never said much to me, other than ‘Everything all right?’ to which the only acceptable answer seemed to be ‘Yes’.
She would ask Will if he wanted anything, occasionally suggest something he might like to do tomorrow – some outing, or some friend who had asked after him – and he would almost always answer dismissively, if not with downright rudeness. She would look pained, run her fingers up and down that little gold chain, and disappear again.
His father, a well-padded, gentle-looking man, usually came in as I was leaving. He was the kind of man you might see watching cricket in a Panama hat, and had apparently overseen the management of the castle since retiring from his well-paid job in the city. I suspected this was like a benign landowner digging in the odd potato just ‘to keep his hand in’. He finished every day at 5pm promptly and would sit and watch television with Will. Sometimes I heard him making some remark about whatever was on the news as I left.
I got to study Will Traynor up close, in those first couple of weeks. I saw that he seemed determined not to look anything like the man he had been; he had let his light-brown hair grow into a shapeless mess, his stubble crawl across his jaw. His grey eyes were lined with exhaustion, or the effect of constant discomfort (Nathan said he was rarely comfortable). They bore the hollow look of someone who was always a few steps removed from the world around him. Sometimes I wondered if it was a defence mechanism, whether the only way to cope with his life was to pretend it wasn’t him it was happening to.